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can we talk genetic drift in clones?

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SeaMaiden

Ok, Tom, stickshift, et alia. Let's get back to the subject matter at hand and try to figure out what's being observed, or what to call it, when we observe physical differences between a 'clone' (I tend to call them cuttings) and the mother plant. If it's a phenotype change, can you explain what spurred it?

What if we use the unnamed African I grew out this year as an example? If you'll recall, I mentioned that grown indoors, which is the conditions the line is said to have been selected for, the cuttings grow short and stout, though the leaves still retained some of their Sativa slimness. I grew out two cuttings of the same line, and one appeared to revert back to her Sativa roots. She stretched like no tomorrow, the leaves almost turned into strings the lobes became so narrow, the buds 'roped' up the plant instead of the packing and stacking that's typically observed in Afghani hybrids. She finished, but when the weather got really hot she began to throw out new pistil growth as well as stretched a bit taller, especially as compared to her sisters.

So, what am I observing, and what is it properly called?
 
Jbonez

Jbonez

Active member
Veteran
greenpinky said:
Lol no one will complain if genitic drift made there plant better.
Click to expand...

Bingo..

I think this is another "theory" similar to flushing, designed to alleviate blame on the part of an otherwise inexperienced grower.. But hey, Im just a geek with an aspergers like cognitive displacement, what do I know...
 
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InstantKarma

Member
SeaMaiden said:
Ok, Tom, stickshift, et alia. Let's get back to the subject matter at hand and try to figure out what's being observed, or what to call it, when we observe physical differences between a 'clone' (I tend to call them cuttings) and the mother plant. If it's a phenotype change, can you explain what spurred it?

What if we use the unnamed African I grew out this year as an example? If you'll recall, I mentioned that grown indoors, which is the conditions the line is said to have been selected for, the cuttings grow short and stout, though the leaves still retained some of their Sativa slimness. I grew out two cuttings of the same line, and one appeared to revert back to her Sativa roots. She stretched like no tomorrow, the leaves almost turned into strings the lobes became so narrow, the buds 'roped' up the plant instead of the packing and stacking that's typically observed in Afghani hybrids. She finished, but when the weather got really hot she began to throw out new pistil growth as well as stretched a bit taller, especially as compared to her sisters.

So, what am I observing, and what is it properly called?
Click to expand...

IMO, what you are experiencing is phenotypic plasticity.

As far as I know, genetic drift occurs through reproduction when genetic information is added or removed from genepool. The offspring would then subject to genetic drift.
 
Tom Hill

Tom Hill

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Yeah I am with InstantKarma here on this one, to the tune of 80/20. Not saying your proposal of actual genetic drift is impossible, just highly unlikely maths wise ime. Have you considered the possibility of increased GAs (Gibberellins) processing by said oddball? It would certainly in my mind hold advantage over other possibilities until I could prove otherwise is the gist of my thrust as it were, :) , had to. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gibberellin

I once tripped out on a line that way more than usual began to occur the main stalks splitting into two or more meristems, and without apparent cause.. Until I realized that upon moving them from one room to another, the tender was banging the tips of said plants on the doorjamb causing said "FIM" effects. There really is no real moral to this story, other than let's be cautious in reaching conclusions, because the jury is most definitely,,, still out. -T
 
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TGT

TGT

Tom 'Green' Thumb
Veteran
Thanks for your response Tom!

I know that I have witnessed pheno change in the first few generations I had this cut and I believe that to be because the plant was originally grown outside. When I received the cut and grew it indoors it started to exhibit more Sativa characteristics. Once it changed to fit its environment it stayed the same for many years now. I am willing to bet if I placed her outdoors again she would revert back to the same pheno type she was when I first was gifted her.

TGT
 
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The Duke

New member
Another possible cause is the type of 'cloning' we are talking about. Is the same mother maintained over a couple of years and all cuttings taken from her, or are the cuttings grown out, then more cuttings taken from them and grown out and so on (serial cloning) The op said that they have done many runs of the cut and it has deteriorated over time. I suspect that serial cloning (aswell as environmental conditions) may explain the degradation of the plants over time. In my experience serial cloning over succesive 'generations' can cause degradation in the plants in some way. It can affect the plants in any number of ways,such as loss of vigour, a decline in potency or smell or tasteor yield. It may not happen at all. The only way to avoid this possibility is to maintain a mother plant of the strain and take all cuttings from her. Back in the day i had plants which i serially (sp?) cloned for 7 runs with no degradation of the plants, but have also experienced the decline in other strains after 4. Just my take on it.
 
Ouzo180

Ouzo180

Member
Retrospectively...and I am by no means an expert but... in Green's "Breeder's Bible" he states the opinion that it is better to keep fresh mother plants as multigenerational cloning off of the same areas can result in mutation due to recurrent tissue damage possibly affecting the genetics, albeit over perhaps 100's or thousands of generations. He also did state the importance of picking healthy new clones for new mothers. So there are still conflicting theories by reliable knowledgable people. It makes sense either way to me, obviously there is a lot to be researched in this area still. Personally I keep mothers for 6-12 months and then flower them out and create a new mother and though I haven't done 1000's of runs (possibly never will of most of the strains) I have yet to see any problems.
 
Nunsacred

Nunsacred

Active member
SeaMaiden said:
If it's a phenotype change, can you explain what spurred it?

.... I grew out two cuttings of the same line, and one appeared to revert back to her Sativa roots. ...

So, what am I observing, and what is it properly called?
Click to expand...

"epigenetic drift" is probably a decent name for that.
Chromatin restructuring.
Heterochromatin boundary change.
Conformational change in the nuclear slip knot.

Probably caused by :
a different gradient of hormones in the cuts, initially, so only one of them altered the dominance of a gene which then caused a cascade of different gene expression in that one.
Sometimes these are permanent changes.

If this stuff wasn't quite tightly controlled, plants wouldn't hybridise so easily, but it's a seething anarchy within.
There are multiple copies of entire genomes in all flowering plants and the choice of which versions to use can flip connecting pieces around.
They are amphi-diploid, not diploid.
This is why Mendelian models are useless outside the classroom.
 
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stickshift

Active member
They are amphi-diploid, not diploid.
Click to expand...
would that not make them all polyploids? and as such all allotetraploid therefore the result of interspecific hybridisation!! when they did the genome seq of "purple kush" they still stated it as diploid 2n with 9 autosomes.. (or are you stating that indicaxsativa = interspecific ?)
 
Nunsacred

Nunsacred

Active member
I've written the clearest answer I can without burying it in details.
It's enough to know that they're not true diploid.

If you want to know you can look up 'amphidiploid' and paleopolyploidy.
It affects ALL flowering plants.

Here's a tip : when "they" release a plant genome sequence, it's just a collection of assembled fragments. Of course they state what you want to hear. Diploid 2n=20.
But if you chose a collection of 'classic' plant genes and probed cannabis cell nuclei for those gene sequences to count the number of hits, and you did this for years to get a fair answer, I absolutely guarantee you would not call cannabis diploid.
 
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stickshift

Active member
Nunsacred said:
I've written the clearest answer I can without burying it in details.
It's enough to know that they're not true diploid.

If you want to know you can look up 'amphidiploid' and paleopolyploidy.
It affects ALL flowering plants.

Here's a tip : when "they" release a plant genome sequence, it's just a collection of assembled fragments. Of course they state what you want to hear. Diploid 2n=20.
But if you chose a collection of 'classic' plant genes and probed cannabis cell nuclei for those gene sequences to count the number of hits, and you did this for years to get a fair answer, I absolutely guarantee you would not call cannabis diploid.
Click to expand...

whilst I can agree that all flowering plants have an ancestory of paleopolyploidy I can't say all of the cannabis drug pool is amphidiploid, I could see it arising thru mutation in cuttings, but that would be like "the parallel path of inheritance" where by the plant is supposed to flip to its "cached" version of ancestor genes, they have looked at something with arabidopsis like this.
 
Nunsacred

Nunsacred

Active member
Stresses like cold shock or heat shock can cause changes in gene expression without needing any mutation to do it, that's the point.

It only looks like mutation because a different version of genes got activated.
This happens a lot more often in cutting lines than it could do by mutation alone.
The evolutionary strength of epigenetic control is enormous.
 
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izzywozzywizzy

My take is if you buy a brand new car its fast clean ,low maintainance .if you haveva 30 year old classic car it will still be good but you will have to work hard to keep it from running into probs continuallya lot of classic strains are 30 years old and used in seed production then we take clones of them so maybe the clones end up being fatherd by old age penesioners.peace
 
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hydrodreams

Member
An issue that makes me busy for years already. Therefore I am very interested to get others people "findings" about it.

Some apple- strains you got to see 30 years ago, are the same you still get to see today when you go to the Supermarket.

In Holland and many other places they are growing everything in the Glasshouses under "non-natural" conditions. These growers are extremely dependant on a high quality crop that is super uniform...

So how do you growers explain yourself how the clone- producers of these industries are dealing with the issue we are discussing here about?

Hydrodreams
 
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